


By Any Means Necessary

by fictualities (lydiabennet)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-28
Updated: 2009-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-28 12:33:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lydiabennet/pseuds/fictualities
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Draco said nothing, because there was nothing to say. His role had no more lines assigned, not now. He was a turncoat to his family's cause, an old enemy long vanquished and outgrown, a barely tolerated clown. He was something else as well, but that was strictly between him and Potter and was never mentioned in the light of day."</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Any Means Necessary

**Author's Note:**

> Written pre-HBP; originally posted on LJ.

Draco had always known this moment would come, the moment when there was no time. No time to debate, no time to count the dead. No time to ask permission, and no one left to ask, now that the Ministry and half of wizarding England lay in ruins. The surviving members of the Order could only agree to Dumbledore's plan and seize the one chance that he had somehow created out of the air. Or not entirely out of the air, since it had cost Tonks' life and Longbottom's sanity. But there was no time to think about that. The compromised wards around Voldemort's safe house would restore themselves in twenty minutes. Potter had to go, now, and end it all.

So the moment of parting had come, the inevitable ending to Potter's thrilling story, and on the whole, Draco supposed, Potter's supporting cast of sidekicks and bit players was managing rather well. They performed perfectly, as if each of them had been born and bred for just one purpose, and this, at last, was it.

The Weasel, playing the Best Friend, clapped Harry on the shoulder and said, _Good luck, mate_. Granger, the Font of All Knowledge, began a lecture on delayed-action curses, only to be interrupted by Moody, the Voice of Experience, who growled that Voldemort had mastered delayed-action curses in his teens. Snape, the Professional Bastard, icily observed that it would all come down to tactics, and that Potter had best put to use whatever pathetic skill he'd developed at Legilimency or he'd die within seconds.

As for Draco, he yawned from the corner where he lounged alone, and advised Potter to remember to wear clean socks.

That was Draco's role, or one of them. Potter glanced at him over the Weasel's head and rolled his eyes.

Nineteen minutes.

Granger flung her arms around Potter and whispered something in his ear. Potter nodded, one arm around her shoulders, hesitantly stroking her hair. Weasley shoved his hands in his pockets and radiated misery. Snape paced restlessly about the room and said _For fuck's sake don't die on us_.

Eighteen minutes.

Dumbledore just nodded at Potter benignly. Whatever his role -- and Draco often wondered whether the old man did anything but twinkle while other people did the work -- he was not the hero of the piece. That was Potter's job.

Seventeen and half minutes.

Granger was actually crying. "Don't forget how much we love you," she said.

Potter scratched his neck and said, "I won't," and Dumbledore said, "It's time."

Potter reached for the Portkey and looked up, maybe at Draco but it was hard to tell; his eyes were hidden behind blank circles of light reflecting off his glasses.

Draco said nothing, because there was nothing to say. His role had no more lines assigned, not now. He was a turncoat to his family's cause, an old enemy long vanquished and outgrown, a barely tolerated clown. He was something else as well, but that was strictly between him and Potter and was never mentioned in the light of day.

He of all people could administer no final blessing to the departing hero. There were rules for this kind of thing. And Gryffindors, who respected nothing, nevertheless respected these iron laws of tragedy.

So Draco simply looked -- anyone can look -- and thought of many things he did not say. He did not say that Potter should cast aside his friends and their cloying, suffocating love, that they could do nothing for him now. One part of Potter and one part only could kill Voldemort, and his friends could not see it. They had never seen it. They did not know this Potter existed.

Draco knew. He knew a Potter who came to life only for a few fierce gasping moments in deserted rooms: in hot breath on Draco's lips, in the tearing of clothes and the shock of sweaty skin on skin. This Potter bit and clawed and fucked and came in a surge of raw magic that roared through them both and withdrew just as fast, leaving Draco bruised, bereft, ecstatic, _owned_. He was the half-savage demon who'd torn Voldemort's Mark _out_ of Draco's flesh and said _mine, mine, you're mine now and don't you forget it._

But this Potter invariably vanished with the light of morning.

Draco sometimes wondered if he'd only imagined him, or at least willed him into existence for a night, creating the Potter he needed from a half-completed boy. Now he might never know. There was no more time.

Sixteen minutes.

Potter's fingers hovered above the Portkey, and yes, he was looking at Draco, and for half a second something dark and terrifyingly familiar flickered behind that placid Gryffindor faAade. Yes, _yes_ , Draco thought, and a wild black hope flashed in him as their eyes met and Draco did not say: _yes, that's right, forget them all, forget the lies they have told you about yourself. But don't forget ME, don't you dare, Potter, because I can see where they are blind. And I am the one, the ONLY one, who expects you to win._

Potter looked at him hard, quirking his eyebrows. He nodded sharply, once, and vanished in a flare of dark.

Released, Draco sagged back into his chair and tried to stop shaking. Fuck. Fuck. It just might work. They didn't deserve it but it might work anyway.

He looked around, dazed, only to find Dumbledore nodding at him benignly. Stupid old fraud, Draco thought with a surge of giddy conviction, he's free of you now, thanks to me. It takes a Slytherin to get things _done_ when a deranged lunatic like Voldemort has to be put down. It takes a Slytherin to prime the Gryffindors' best and only weapon, to free him from their ridiculous taste for melodrama.

So Draco stared right back at Dumbledore and laughed -- only to choke off abruptly when he noticed, at last and many years too late, the smile of slow, catlike satisfaction that spread across the old man's face.

_________________________


End file.
